New Delhi, December 9
On the eve of World Human Rights Day tomorrow, it has been revealed that the Ministry of Human Resource Development and University Grants Commission, having the responsibility to protect students from ragging, have allegedly failed in their job and miserably so on at least one occasion where their callousness allegedly led to the death of a student.

For this “dereliction” of duty, anti-ragging campaigners led by Rajinder Kachroo, the father of Aman Kachroo who died in a ragging attack last year, have moved the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) against the UGC chairman, accusing him of failing to prevent ragging and demanding an inquiry against him for “violating” human rights.

In its February 11, 2009, judgment, the Supreme Court described ragging as a “systemised form of human rights abuse”. At the heart of the complaint was the alleged death of a student this year, who repeatedly called on the government’s anti-ragging helpline for assistance but received none; he eventually died.

Records of the helpline, launched in June 2009 after the killing of Kachroo, reveal that Abhishek Shah, a Ghaziabad student, registered a complaint with the UGC’s anti-ragging call centre on August 13 this year. He said he was being “traumatised and ragged”. On August 14, he again called to complain, begging for “action before the situation got out of control”. A day later, Abhishek was found dead. The call centre staff claim that they registered the complaint and sent an email to the college and police officials concerned. Both college and the police, however, deny having received any such information.

Over 500 similar complaints of ragging made at the helpline were never processed to the end. Affirmative action was not taken in even one case. The complaint to NHRC chairperson Justice KG Balakrishnan demands action against incumbent UGC chief SK Thorat on grounds that he “failed in his duties”.

Significant was to mention that the apex court, after Kachroo’s death, took a strict view of the menace and held the heads of institutions responsible for the protection of students.

Justices Arijit Pasayat and AK Ganguly on May 8, 2009, observed: “The recent incident involving the death of Aman Kachroo clearly indicates that the formulation of guidelines and regulations is not sufficient. Such regulations shall have to be enforced strictly and penal consequences for the heads of the institutions/administration of the institution who do not take timely steps in the prevention of ragging and punishing those who rag….”

The complaint accuses the UGC of having changed the apex court-approved anti-ragging plan, which had foolproof arrangements for students’ security. The HRD Ministry instead asked EdCIL, its own associated PSU with no experience in call centre work, to run the helpline, which continues to function apathetically — receiving calls, forwarding cases on a weekly basis to the UGC, which makes a file of each case, moves them through official structures before writing letters to the heads of institutions concerned and posting them. Notably, precious time is lost in bureaucratic work, which has made a mockery of SC’s direction that the national anti-ragging helpline should be a crisis hotline. “It is just a block of ice,” Rajinder Kachroo says. He had also dispatched a complaint to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on HRD.